


The Waters Of March

by thedastardly



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: M/M, mentions of Kieren/Rick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-06
Updated: 2014-07-06
Packaged: 2018-02-07 16:37:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1906089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedastardly/pseuds/thedastardly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kieren and Simon share a private moment in Kieren's room after Amy's wake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Waters Of March

 

They are laying, side by side, on Kieren's twin bed. The room is dim and quiet, but downstairs Kieren can hear his parents murmuring in that way that parents do when they're arguing or discussing something that they have decided you should not be privy to. Jem's room down the hall has been quiet for hours, too, since he left her there, cried out and tired, to sleep. He is not surprised by his parents muttering quietly, because his parents have always been the sort of discreet people that do not argue above a whisper. 

 

Now, they are _discussing,_ though. Taking turns giving one another input about a particular topic. Kieren knows it's about him. He doesn't think they'll send him back to the treatment center, but he hates that they're discussing him anyway. He hates it, because it feels like everyone is always talking about him as if he isn’t there. 

 

"I rarely got into trouble when I was alive, you know," Kieren says quietly. He does not move or even look at the man next to him. It is a truth, though. Kieren got good marks in school, and never fought with his sister. He always did the dishes after supper, and had a very quiet hobby. His parents admonished him sometimes, but overall he never was much of an inconvenience.

 

"It must be nice to get the second chance to break some rules then," Simon responds evenly. His arm is pinched between their bodies in what most would consider an awkward and uncomfortable position. He can't feel it, though, and Kieren knows it by the way he does not shift or move to make himself comfortable. Or maybe he can feel it,and he just does not care. 

 

Kieren doesn't care about that either, he decides. He cares only for the solid body laying next to and near him. For the way he can see Simon's chest rise and fall with each of his breaths. The way his eyelashes look -- inky, black, smudges against moonlight on milk skin -- when he blinks. The tyrian purple tint to his nails where his free hand rests on his hip. He cares about the fact that Simon has spent hours laying next to him, and that he hasn't spoken or even tried to coax some kind of emotional response from him. He cares about that.

 

Kieren realizes, suddenly, that this is the first time that Simon has ever seen his room, and he immediately feels a bit embarrassed by it. He was embarrassed the first time Rick saw it, too. Rick, who had thumbed through drawings and touched the canvases hanging on the wall. Kieren remembered how Rick's fingers traced the oil on the canvas, a dimension that he had never felt before. He had smiled. _You're so amazing, Ren._

 

Kieren had taken Simon by the hand and brought him upstairs after the wake, and had closed the door without words. Directly after, he had wrapped his arms around Simon's shoulders, buried his face in the rain scent of his jacket and stood there. Simon had wrapped his arms around Kieren too, and pressed his cheek to the top of the other man's head. Kieren liked how right it had felt when he pulled away and shrugged off his coat. Simon had watched as he hung his jacket on the back of a chair and laid on the bed, at the very edge of one side. Simon laid down next to him, fitting himself in the space left over for his slightly larger body. Kieren hadn't even had to ask him; he had just known that the space was for him, that Kieren did not want him to go. Simon hadn't even tried to touch things in his room, hadn't tried to examine the secrets of his boyfriend's private space. Kieren felt like that was important, and although he didn't quite know why, he cared. Cared about how Simon didn't pry.

 

They had stayed that way for what must have been hours, not speaking or moving or even looking at one another. Kieren lost track of time until his mother rapped her knuckles on the door and asked him through the wood if he needed anything. He had felt Simon turn slightly, awaiting the answer. _Nothing,_ had been his response and it was true, and it was more painful the more true it stayed. It had been another half hour at least before Kieren heard his parents speaking, heard them discussing. 

 

"You're not in trouble anyway," Simon says, breaking the very long pause between them. Interrupting Kieren's thoughts.

 

"I know," Kieren says, but he also knows that he has not been a saint since Amy and Simon showed up in Roarton. Trouble never comes alone, after all.

 

_And why should I be_? He thinks as he rolls into Simon's side and presses a hasty kiss to the man's mouth. Simon reacts almost immediately, eyebrows coming up and eyes closing, awaiting the promise of something more. He turns his body slightly, tries to meet Kieren fully.

 

Kieren has spent both his life and his afterlife playing things safe. Even his relationship with Simon is careful, just south of daring, adventurous. Bringing a boy up to his room is the most exciting thing he can ever remember doing when he was alive, and that excitement has carried over. He wonders if that's what his parents are discussing down in the sitting room -- the fact that Kieren is gay, and they've let him take a boy upstairs, and _what are they doing up there all alone without parental supervision?_ He wonders if they have considered sex between he and Simon. Kieren himself wonders about sex, but never lingers on it, even though he feels elatedby the idea of having Simon in his bed, lying next to him, by the idea of sex with him, even if it isn’t possible.

 

It seems very dangerous.

 

Kieren feels as though he could use a bit of danger at the moment. Amy would want him to be dangerous with a boy in his bedroom and in his bed. She'd want the details afterward, totally invading his privacy in a way that is acceptable only for your best friend. He hadn't even really got to talk to her about it: about the way that Simon made him feel, or the way that Simon looked at him. He wanted her to be happy for him, to see him with this person who cared about him.

 

He wanted everyone to see the way they looked at each other. He wanted Amy to see it, too. Now, though —

 

Now though, he thinks, he cannot mourn forever. Kieren's hands find the side of Simon's face and he pulls him closer, pushing a timid kiss on the side of the man's mouth into a full on snog. Simon is, of course, more than happy to oblige the intimacy. Though, not without question:

 

"Are you okay?" He murmurs against Kieren's lips, against his chin, they are a flurry of movement for a moment. Cool skin against cool skin. Kieren is pulling Simon up, pushing his jacket off, over his shoulders, onto the bedroom floor. He appears lucid but is also frantic, determined, insistent.

 

"I'm fine," he responds calmly, fingers tracing lines from Simon's hair to his neck, over his shirt, pressed white fabric -- a button is missing near the bottom. Simon is giving him a look, under those dark, beautiful lashes from where he is still leaning on his elbows on the bed. Kieren sits up, propping himself with his hands. "Yeah, I'm all right." He feels resolute in this moment. A feeling of strength in his sadness washes over him. 

 

"Yeah?" Simon is still speaking evenly. He's not bursting emotion and rampant feelings at the moment. Kieren knows he is grieving in his own way, in a way akin to Kieren’s, but not exactly the same. The manic behavior isn't really a part of drug addiction. Not in the way it can be a part of depression and anxiety. Kieren’s two best emotions.

 

Kieren rearranges them on the bed, pulls Simon more toward the centre, plants his hands on the other man's thighs as he fits himself between his legs. How had he missed this part of life, missed the part where he let a boy clamor over every inch of him, and tell him that he was good, and amazing, and beautiful? He had hoped that Rick would be the person to give him that. He had belong to Rick before he belonged to anyone else, or even thought of belonging to someone else. The first time he kissed Simon was when Rick's spirit had finally released him, and he hadn't even felt bad about it.

 

That connection was not without fear - he had certainly felt the sickness and bile of first love's death. Yet Kieren did not want to resolve himself to a life of watching the moors for Rick's spectre. Instead, he let the wind blow him away.

 

Now, he can press his mouth against Simon’s, and curl his fingers in the fabric of the man's trousers, in his hair. He can force the senses that he remembers to re-emerge in his mind and bring him closer to a feeling than anything else. More than the dull ache of his nerves as they feel the fabric of Simon's clothing, more than the feeling of their mouths pressed together. He can smell the scent of the dark, wet, soil that clings to each of them in Simon's hair. It's in his mouth as well, dark earth that you want to wrap up and sleep in forever. Kieren turns his head to catch his breath, remembering what it was like to kiss someone so breathless that they pulled away to allow oxygen to their brains. When he kissed Rick he had gotten dizzy in the light of the caves. He can hear Simon's breathing in his ear, like the ocean beating a continuous wave against him. He thinks of his heart filling up with the ocean, with the rain. 

 

"Out of breath?" Simon smirks and murmurs. His voice is confused, distracted, a little dazed by the intensity of their intimacy. His lips move against Kieren’s ear, nose nuzzling his hair. Kieren thinks _this is nice,_ and closes his eyes momentarily. He thinks about what sort of scent Simon might have had when he was alive, and tries to embed it in a memory he does not have. Simon hums, "You smell like rain water."

 

"You still haven't told me where you went," Kieren demands, suddenly angry at Simon again for disappearing on him. He turns and gives him a steely gaze, white irises meeting and neither admitting what the other knows. Kieren knows that Simon has done something bad, something that should hurt, but he does not have the wherewithal to be mad at him just yet, to yell and scream and shout his boyfriend down. Amy's only just gone in the ground, and attacking Simon would be detrimental to not only his own mental state, but to his heart. 

 

Kieren studies Simon for a long time. 

 

Simon, for his part, does not offer up any information. Maybe because he does not know what to say, or how to say it. Kieren thinks that it has something to do with Amy's death; if that is the case, then Simon is more burdened than he is. So Kieren cannot fault him for that.

 

"It's werid," he says seriously, finally, his voice on the edge of breaking, "how the people I seem to like the most are the ones to get offed." Simon's brow knits together as he studies him, watches the pieces fall away. He places a hand on Kieren's arm and tries to steady him, tries to keep his emotions from overflowing. Kieren has bounded over the edge and is hurtling quickly toward tears again. When he lifts his hands to press them to his eyes, they shake and Simon grabs both of them, concern in every muscle of his undead body.

 

"I'm still here," Simon murmurs in that soft way that he does when he wants to convey real emotion, real feeling, and not just convince you that you're a very special zombie that is part of someone's plan. Kieren knows, somehow, that Simon is sticking to some secret conviction. He's keeping a promise to himself. If there is anything that Kieren has learned about Simon, it's that he will keep Kieren like a prayer. 

 

Kieren turns on him, eyes flashing darkly for a moment. 

 

"Yes, but for how long, exactly?" 

 

Simon's face conveys the emotions he feels all at once -- a mixture of 'you're right' and 'please don't'. Kieren regrets it almost immediately, but he will not apologize. Not after Simon left, and didn't even leave a message to say where he ran off to before showing back up in Roarton just in the nick of time.

 

Still —

 

Kieren isn't ready for an explanation yet. He doesn't want to be angry at Simon now, because he doesn't want to have to tell his mother and father how he feels every morning when he gets up and comes downstairs. He needs Simon to help him grieve and to help him function. He knows that Simon needs him, too, and he'll let him have him. 

 

Kieren moves up and kisses Simon again, who seems ready to shy away at first, ready to bolt because he cannot account for the things that Kieren wants him to account for. Instead, he pushes back, touches his face, pulls him in. Kieren allows him to touch, to try and feel. He concentrates on it again, on the way the feelings should go and the nerves that should light up in the right ways. Sense memory can be powerful, even in death, even in the afterlife. There is no one that Kieren would rather experience this with.

 

This is their love, Kieren decides. Regardless of what is to come, what truths might be admitted or shared. They are something together.

 

Even if it is only shared sadness on a tiny twin sized bed.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Langolier-s for the beta.


End file.
